About Emily

I am a lover of movement and have been all my life. I danced throughout my childhood and then trained professionally as a contemporary dancer where I was able to understand and experience the body in movement from multiple and varied perspectives. Alongside life as a dancer I practiced yoga which became a refuge amongst the competitive industry of the dance world. I found through yoga an accessible way to connect to my body both in movement and in stillness. After years of needing to dance in big studios to get my kicks I found it very liberating that I needed only the space of a mat to forge an embodied connection that offered me a space of grounding, regulation, belonging, wholeness and freedom.

When I was eighteen I began to make many soul searching trips to India and in 2011 I did my first yoga training in traditional Hatha Yoga in the mountains of Dharamshala. I then had various yoga teaching jobs in Indonesia and Malaysia which embedded in me a love of practicing yoga in natural and elemental spaces. These embodied experiences in nature contributed to the creation of The Soma Shala a yoga and embodiment center that I now run in South Devon.

My own personal journey with women’s health and wellbeing meant that I also became interested in yoga as a therapeutic practice​ and in 2015 I graduated as a yoga therapist and pregnancy yoga teacher. Shortly after this I gave birth to my first child and my journey to becoming a mother and being a mother, now to three children, has initiated a huge journey of healing and drawn me towards exploring somatic movement practices that regulate the nervous system and create resource. ​As part of my own personal journey and also to better support my yoga therapy clients, I​ am also a qualified​ trauma informed yoga teacher​ and am committed to offering yoga to others in a way that supports the trauma we may carry and how that might affect our ability to access the practice​s of yoga and embodiment. As both a mixed race and queer identifying person I have experienced an intersection of marginalized identities and seek to create spaces that are inclusive, diverse and welcoming to all.

I have now found myself returning to movement​ practices that have their roots in dance and somatics. I am currently enjoying exploring how somatic movement practices and yoga can compliment each other to facilitate therapeutic, fulfilling, nourishing, self regulating connections with ourselves and the world around. I will soon begin a training with the IBMT in Infant Movement Development and Authentic Movement. Through this exploration in somatic movement there is a return to the dancer in me, which is a beautiful thing that I didn’t expect to reconnect with at this stage in my life and has reminded me that it is never to late to engage with what we love! I am also part of the Devon School of Yoga faculty teaching on the foundation course and yoga therapy course where I will be offering trauma sensitive yoga tools for yoga therapists.

Teaching Style/approach

My approach is mindful, therapeutic and somatic influenced by my work as a yoga therapist, my training in trauma sensitive yoga and my interest in how the field of somatic movement and yoga compliment each other. The form, structure and tradition of yoga offers the framework and a mindful somatic approach offers space to hear ourselves, listen to our bodies from within this form, and respond appropriately. This approach supports the yoga practice to become one of embodiment, connection and listening that can support creating nourishing relationships with ourself and the world around.

In this way the physical practice of yoga becomes a doorway to many of the other deeper philosophies of yoga that can be accessed as we consciously connect to our bodies, breath and the earth from a place of felt experience, embodiment, presence and awareness. Centering felt sense and how it feels to move and breathe and be in contact with the elements during my own practice has opened an enjoyable, pleasurable, fun and deeply resourcing space that is more about a return to the essence of who I am than achieving a particular shape or posture.

I also focus on practices and movement sequences that support feelings of being stable, safe and grounded in the body. This can then open a space for curiosity, openness, expansiveness, aliveness and a reaching out into life. I work with gravity to help access the felt sense of release, letting go and surrender as well as how we might become more rooted to support creating more spaces in the body and an ability to reach out and actively move into the spaces that are around us with more ease.

I respect everyone’s unique abilities/needs and provide options, choices and opportunities for body agency. The therapeutic nature of the yoga classes provide an invitation to return to the feeling body, regulate the nervous system and become a mindful witness to both the external and internal worlds.

You are welcome in my classes just as you are and I offer the spirit of yoga as a path of connection and self awareness above and beyond any other focus. It is a great side effect that as we move into this state of self awareness through our connection to the body that we also gain strength, flexibility and receive many benefits that positively effect our well being physically, mentally and emotionally. This approach creates space to inhabit the yoga practice in a way that is accessible to who we are as diverse and unique individuals.

I am lover of all things movement for the joy, connection, support, belonging, resource and remembering that it offers me as I try to navigate life as a moving, sensing, feeling human being! And I hope also to be able to share these things with those of you who come to practice with me.

For class descriptions follow this link: https://www.emilykatsunoyoga.com/class-descriptions and scroll down to read about what to expect at the different classes happening at The Soma Shala.

My Qualifications & Training

• 1st Class BA Hons Degree London Contemporary Dance School ~ 2004 - 2007

• Post-Graduate Performance Diploma Transitions Dance Company LABAN ~ 2007 - 2008

• Yoga Teacher Training with Yoga Life in Dharamshala India (Accredited by Yoga Alliance) ~ 2011

• Two Year Post-graduate Holistic Yoga Therapy Training and Pregnancy Yoga with the Devon School of Yoga (Accredited by the Independent Yoga Network) ~ 2013 - 2015

• Yin Yoga with Norman Blair ~ 2015 Yoga Alliance Continuing Education

• Well Woman yoga therapy teacher training with Uma Dinsmore Tuli (Accredited by the Independent Yoga Network) 2017

• Accredited Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher Training - with Susi Wrenshaw, Trauma Therapy Manchester - 2021

• Foundations of Embodiment (Somatics, somatic experiencing principles, buddhist mindfulness, embodiment, trauma informed) - with Gemma Malloll and Marcela Wakeham 2022

CPD & Professional Workshops

• Yoga Nidra for Mental Health CPD with Shaura Hall, The Minded Institute

• Yoga Skills for Working with Anxiety CPD with Heather Mason, The Minded Institute

• Yoga as a Trauma informed practice CPD - Trauma training for yoga teachers - with Susi Wrenshaw, Trauma Therapy Manchester

• Trauma Centre, Trauma Sensitive Yoga 20 Hour Foundation Workshop - Delivered by The Training Faculty, The Centre for Trauma & Embodiment, Alexandra Cat (The Yoga Clinic, UK)

• Internal Family Systems Introductory Course

Relevant Other

• Woman’s Temazcal Journey - Fiona Shaw

• Two Year Woman’s Journeying Group of the Soul - Fiona Shaw

• Explorations in the Elemental Body (Somatic Movement, Dance, Yoga) - Gemma Mallol

• Embodying the Sacred Cacao Ritual - Marcela Wakeham

• Reconnected Parenting with The Reconnected Affiliate link here to join this amazing programme: https://programs.thereconnected.com/a/2147831081/ezbLx2Kj